How to Woo Your Demon Wife
by sudowoodo
Summary: Convinced he's now married to Shiemi, Amaimon explores the frightening depths of pop culture, yaoi manga, YA romance novels and Shakespearean tragedy in order to understand the art of making a girl swoon. But when none of them have the answer, Shiemi teaches him that there's more to marriage than a simple pairing. A silly, hopefully funny and very meta rom-com. Please enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

_Shiemi_

Ah, um, so it seems … my first kiss was stolen by a demon.

And not just any demon … it was that Amaimon fellow, the King of Earth. This weird boy with tired eyes and kinda cool clothes and a green spike in his hair. The same person who tried to kill all my friends and threatened to bite my lips off and gouge my eyes out. A demon among demons. He was the one who took my first kiss.

 _"Well technically it was a hamster …"_

Eh, it's all a very silly story, really! You'd expect a first kiss to be a very magical and beautiful experience, in springtime with cherry blossoms and chapstick and fluttering eyelashes and the doki doki kokoro-ki and all those lovely things. That's all any young teen girl would expect. Not that I was expecting a romance so soon in my life, I mean, I was still in my innocent years after all.

Ahem …

But as it happens, I was just in the garden when I came across this little green hamster. It was the cutest thing! And hearing the frogs ribbiting in the pond I thought, well, WHAT IF this hamster was a prince transformed into a hamster only to be rescued by a maiden's kiss?! My mother often said I read too many fairy tales. But he looked at me with such an intelligent expression, you see. So I squealed quietly to myself and said aloud:

"Oh, hamster-san, is it true you are really a prince!?"

And he looked at me with his head cocked to the side as if to say, well, of course!

So I picked him up in my hands and lifted him up while leaning down to kiss him. He raised his head to reach my lips and everything. I gave him a peck, just a peck, and then suddenly there was a _thud!_ and a body had fallen right out of thin air! Well, right out of the air the hamster had been occupying just seconds previous, I mean. And instead of the slightly damp hamster nose of before there was a real life pair of warm lips belonging to — well, _what?_ A prince!?

It had to be! What else? I mean, of course it was … or so I let myself believe for that brief second. What hope! What joy! What malicious deceit! That green spike on the little vermin's head really should have been a dead giveaway. Ah … But, I mean, I had been in a weird state of hypnosis the last time I met him. I could hardly remember a thing about the encounter, and … and … oh, _shoot_.

So, heart beating wildly, I opened my eyes. And there were those scary drooping eyes boring right back into mine. And — oh my — we were still kissing.

"Gyaaaah!" I screamed.

"Ayaaahhh!" he screamed.

I fell backwards, then jumped to my feet in a panic. One of my geta fell off. "You — you're not allowed in here!" I shrieked, pointing wildly at the gate. "The garden! Oh, ah! — Help, help, a demon!" I gasped and rubbed my mouth on my sleeve, feeling my face growing hot and pink. "Puh, puh, puh!"

"Don't despair, m'lady," he drawled, bouncing to his feet and reaching down to pick up my lost shoe. He grinned at me, a horrible fanged smile, his eyes wild with amusement. His voice was lively but calm, like this was all very _normal_ or something. "There's plenty more where that came from, now that we're officially wed."

I cringed away from him, feeling close to tears. Oh, Amaimon, what big ears you have! Oh, demon prince, what pointy teeth!

Ah — and — and _did he just say wed?_

I stumbled back, feeling ill and fluttery like I could probably faint. "My first kiss," I whimpered. "Stolen by a demon?"

"Well, _technically_ it was a hamster," he said.

This was the worst. Even in that film with the kissing frogs, the guy turned out to be a handsome prince! Not a _demon_ prince. None of the princes are ever _demons_.

But that's how it happened. It's really all very silly, right? It probably doesn't count … (haha) … And the problem's not that he's a demon, really — I mean, Yuki-chan is half-demon and .. and … well, never mind that but … but this demon tricked me! It really wasn't fair at all, him stealing my innocence like that! A girl's first kiss is supposed to be something else, something romantic and exciting and terrifying, a fond memory never to be forgotten. And here was mine, ruined by a psycho raving lunatic of a demon who, for whatever reason, decided it would be fun to curse me with a miserable love-life forever. No gallantry, no romance, no cherry blossoms at all! I cried myself to sleep thinking about it. What would my mother say? What would my future true love say? What would … what would the Pope say?

And, you know, I really think he believes we're married now.

That guy, Amaimon, actually left me alone after that, making weird faces at me like I was a cute baby and saying things to himself like 'personal space' and 'glass slipper' as he ran off outside the gate, clutching my geta to his chest.

But every once in a while I still see that demon prince, sitting atop the garden fence with an eery sense of balance. He watches me as I work in the garden, and I try my best to ignore him. But I can't ignore the feelings of wriggling worms in my stomach at the sight of him. It was as if he had hatched more chuchi eggs in my body, somehow, through that stupid little kiss.

I mean … why else would it feel like butterflies?


	2. Chapter 2

_Amaimon_

I perched myself on top of the gate, watching my lady wife tending to her garden.

"Ah … kawaii," I sighed. That's the kind of thing boys say about girls they like. Also, as a recently indoctrinated otaku I guess it had to be my new favourite word. But unfortunately for this pairing, it seems we were destined only for heartbreak.

How cruel it was that I was forbidden from entering her garden. And crueler still that she had been avoiding my piece of the fence ever since the day she first noticed me up here. She had given a start, then pulled an ugly fat toddler face before fleeing. Pretty girls really shouldn't try to look so ugly in front of boys they like. Wives, especially, should always try to look near perfect. Isn't that their end of the bargain?

Yep, we were fence-crossed lovers, for sure. I had been wondering for awhile now exactly how to go about a marriage with this great big barrier between us. This wasn't something simple like infidelity, anger issues, or erectile dysfunction. It wasn't even as if our expectations of marriage had been shattered, and now resentment grew as we stuck it out for the kids while traipsing through pain and misery and quietly hating each other more and more as we grew more wrinkled and hideous until we're finally released from our vows by the sweet, sober kiss of death. I, at least, had no intention of dying in Assiah anytime soon. No, this problem was much more serious. And a hundred times more difficult to deal with.

It wasn't like I was a super clingy husband, either. It was fine for her to have her personal space. But … sometimes it really made me feel like she didn't even want to be my wife in the first place.

My only consolation was that she couldn't keep this up forever. Communication is key to a good marriage, after all. And the nearby plants were dying as she ignored me. I had made sure of that.

Eventually (after the third gruelling minute of my waiting), she strode over, a watering can aloft. She stuck her chin up, averted her eyes, and said, "I — I'm not talking to you. I'm just watering these plants!"

"You had to talk to me to tell me that, my dear," I pointed out. You know, I really can hardly believe how smooth I am. Maybe I should have played the field some more before going off and getting married.

Her face turned pink. Ah, kawaii kawaii kawaii. Actually, I didn't regret this decision much at all. "I — well, yes, but after this I'm not speaking to you!"

Her voice made me feel like smiling. So girlish and airy and … kawaii, for lack of a better word. But then I remembered the real reason I had come here today, and it made me frown. I examined my lollipop, shifting to a cross-legged position atop the fence. "Perhaps it's better if you don't say anything, then," I sighed. "I'm here to break off the marriage, after all. It's difficult enough without you protesting. Truth is, we're just too different. You're a girl and I'm a boy. And this world prefers a male-male mating system, right?"

"Wha—?" she gasped a little, and lifted her hand to her mouth as she gazed up at me. "Why _…_ Where'd you get that idea from?"

 _Aniue turned the key and swung the door open into a room the size of a small cathedral. (Not that I had ever seen the inside of one, but my guess was good as any.) "Welcome, Amaimon … to my yaoi library!"_

I shrugged slightly. "Well, one hundred per cent of my elder brother's manga contain boy love."

She blushed fiercely again, and when she tried to speak she really couldn't. This was it, the real life innocent type. I was mesmerised. I didn't care what Aniue said: maybe real life romance really could be like the doujinshi! "Ah, that kind of thing," she muttered. "No! It's not like that … Men and women _do_ get married. It's boy love — I mean, _homosexual_ relationships, that are less common."

Somewhere in me, I felt a little relieved. Here I was, starting to get irritated that I hadn't been born with better-looking brothers to have this sort of 'fun' with. Twin brothers, especially, were hot topics in the yaoi world. And I wasn't about to allow myself to feel jealous of my dumb half-brothers, Okumura-one and Okumura-two. Not that all that stuff really appealed to me, but … when in Assiah, right? "Oh, is that so? Well, I guess our marriage _is_ valid then!" As she watered the plants near the edge of the fence I floated down to see her better. "I'm pleased. I had spent so much time planning our honeymoon."

"We are not married!" she shrieked. "And I'd never — ever — go anywhere with you!"

That hurt kinda like someone was pinching my heart. "Oi, oi, oi. What an awful way to speak to your husband." I took out my lollipop and nibbled on my fingernail for a moment as she tidied up the flowerbed. "So, could it be that all of yaoi is a lie?" I asked curiously. "What about shounen ai? Bara/shota? Furry?! Don't tell me — not rape, too?"

"R-rape?" she squeaked.

I nodded. "Yep. In yaoi, rape is the surefire method of securing the affections of your crush."

She made a small noise of indignation, pulled the piggy face again, and went back to ignoring me.

I waited patiently, but despite her brightly blushing face she did not seem to be catching my drift, so to say. Truthfully, I had wondered if that method was an option here, but Aniue had told me it'd be better not to try to replicate the content of those stories. Even though they always seemed to enjoy it so much, in the end! Hrm … maybe I needed a new source material for my wooing technique. This world was so complex and contradictory. I shook myself, staring solemnly at my woman as she cut up weeds and filled her basket with herbs.

As she rose to her feet, I desperately piped up again. "To be honest, I never really liked those yaoi anyway. I just don't understand how one is supposed to decide who goes on top." She adjusted her yukata and glanced back at me nervously. I smiled. "Whereas with a girl and a boy it's obvious. You're the cute one, and I'm the cool one."

She shot me a questioning look. Wow, such innocence. Much adorable. Maybe we should get a Shiba Inu, and make a family just like that funny movie where the dog died!

As she continued her silence I began babbling. "Of course, it's no question that you're cute AF. But I guess you don't know you're cute and that's what's makes you cute? Isn't that how the old love song goes?" I asked. She wrinkled her brow at me. Ah, right, my lady wife really was a total newb. Thankfully, this internet thing had taught me a lot about modern culture, and Aniue had filled in the rest. "Ah, sorry. 'AF' is text speak, you know. It stands for 'as Faust'. What I'm saying is that you can wear those slutty miniskirts and the socks that make your thighs look chubby while all the boys imagine the jiggly dessert, and yet you are oblivious to the whole thing! But I like this outfit better, to be honest. It's very modern. Like Harajuku, right? Or was it cosplay …"

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. Maybe she needed feeding, like the goldfishies in the tank at my favourite Chinese restaurant. I considered offering her my lollipop, but I really was enjoying it.

"Chubby thighs?" she repeated.

"Yeah," I said, popping the lollipop out of my mouth and pointing it at her. "But in a totally kawaii way, like babies or chibi or cocktail weiners shaped like octopuses. Oh, sorry, maybe you're still confused by my phrasing. I'm saying you're cute and sweet and shorter than me, so that's why you'd be the uke."

"Uke?" she whispered, and then suddenly emitted a frightened shriek. Before I knew it, she swung the watering can and drenched me with water. But the water burned.

My woman was equipped with watering cans full of holy water. Ah, what a tsundere wife indeed.

"AAAHH!" I screamed. "I'M MELTING!"

"Don't come back here!" she yelled, before sprinting back up to the house. Honestly, I'd prefer it if she was more yandere instead of tsundere. Yan-chan and I would have a lot of fun together. I watched her swing her arms in a girlish manner as she ran, and trip over a new pair of geta. As she got to the door, and turned briefly to shoot me a final, timid glare. "And — I'm not your wife!"

She disappeared inside the building, and I fell back onto my ass. I reached through the gate to pluck a daisy with a sigh. "She wants it," I told myself. I ripped the petals from all the daisies until they told me the same thing. She loves me. She loves me not. No means yes. Yes means anal. And that means …

That's right. The internet will have all the answers! If not, then Aniue will. I'm sure of it!


End file.
